Blindfolded, hooded and wearing earmuffs, suspected terrorists were shackled and flown to secret interrogation centers. The buildings themselves were quiet, clinical and designed to fill prisoners with dread. Detainees were shaved, stripped and photographed nude.

The questioning began mildly, a shackled detainee facing a non-threatening CIA interrogator. But for detainees who refused to cooperate, the interrogation escalated in terrifying ways.

Few people have ever witnessed the process, which was designed to extract secrets from "high value" suspects during the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks on the U.S. But Justice Department documents, which the Obama administration simultaneously released and repudiated Thursday, describe the process from darkness to waterboarding in skin-crawling detail.

Prisoners were naked, shackled and hooded to start their interrogation sessions. When the CIA interrogator removed the hood, the questioning began. Whenever the prisoner resisted, the documents outlined a series of techniques the CIA could use to bring him back in line:

• Nudity, sleep deprivation and dietary restrictions kept prisoners compliant and reminded them they had no control over their basic needs. Clothes and food could be used as rewards for cooperation.

• Slapping prisoners on the face or abdomen was allowed. So was grabbing them forcefully by the collar or slamming them into a false wall, a technique called "walling" that had a goal of fear more than pain.

• Water hoses were used to douse the prisoners for minutes at a time. The hoses were turned on and off as the interrogation continued.

• Prisoners were put into one of three in "stress positions," such as sitting on the floor with legs out straight and arms raised in the air to cause discomfort.

At night, the detainees were shackled, standing naked or wearing a diaper. The length of sleep deprivation varied by prisoner but was authorized for up to 180 hours, or 7 1/2 days. Interrogation sessions ranged from 30 minutes to several hours and could be repeated as necessary and as approved by psychological and medical teams.

Some of these techniques, such as stripping a detainee naked, depriving him of sleep and putting a hood over his head, are prohibited under the U.S. Army Field Manual. But in 2002, the Justice Department authorized CIA interrogators to step up the pressure even further on suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah.

Justice Department lawyers said the CIA could place Zubaydah in a cramped confinement box. Because Zubaydah appeared afraid of insects, they also authorized interrogators to place him in a box and fill it box with caterpillars (that tactic ultimately was not used).

Finally, the Justice Department authorized interrogators to take a step into what the United States now considers torture, waterboarding.

The Bush administration approved the use of waterboarding, a technique in which Zubaydah was strapped to a board, his feet raised above his head. His face was covered with a wet cloth as interrogators poured water over it.

The body responds as if it is drowning, over and over as the process is repeated.

"We find that the use of the waterboard constitutes a threat of imminent death," Justice Department attorneys wrote. "From the vantage point of any reasonable person undergoing this procedure in such circumstances, he would feel as if he is drowning at the very moment of the procedure due to the uncontrollable physiological sensation he is experiencing."

But attorneys decided that waterboarding caused "no pain or actual harm whatsoever" and so did not meet the "severe pain and suffering" standard to be considered torture.

President Barack Obama has ended the CIA's interrogation program. CIA interrogators are now required to follow Army guidelines, under which waterboarding and many of the techniques listed above are prohibited.

BlueAngel

04-21-2009, 11:16 PM

Excuse me, but please do not mislead the American people into believing that the survival techniques taught to our soldiers to withstand interrogation if captured by the enemy are one and the same as being TORTURED.

Being tortured and learning survival techniques to withstand torture are NOT ONE AND THE SAME.

The sadistic pigs who torture don't use a SURVIVAL manual.

They use a TORTURE manual.

Furthermore, do not mislead the American people into believing that the only PEOPLE the CIA has ever tortured are those who were detained at GITMO and considered 911 suspects.

If I recall correctly, and I know that I do, the CIA's secret TORTURE prisons that are located on many islands throughout the world have been in existence for decades.

I was TORTURTED decades ago.

I AM not a TERRORIST; but, perhaps, considered to have been one by the corrupt powers that control our country.

Or, more importantly, used, as well, during my incarceration in MKULTRA/Project Monarch to test their torture techniques.

I'm certain that I am not the only American citizen who was tortured by Nazi scientists/doctors; Navy goons and other sadistic pigs who work for the CIA.

So, Obama, stands in front of CIA headquarters after the American public learns of their disgusting tactics at GITMO and praises them in order to boost their morale.

The CIA could care less about having their morale boosted.

They have no morals.

It's a show to try to make the CIA appear not to be the "rogue" and corrupt organization that it is in the eyes of the American people.

Opponents of last week's release of memos detailing CIA interrogation techniques argue that they will provide enemies of the United States with a training manual to prepare their operatives for capture. The irony is that the U.S. military appears to have done the exact opposite, taking a training program that had been designed to prepare American soldiers to withstand torture by communist regimes seeking to extract false confessions, and twisting it into a highly controversial interrogation manual.

The story of that mutation emerges in disquieting detail in a new report by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. It shows how U.S. interrogators at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and camps in Afghanistan based some of their interrogations on techniques taken from the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training program. These techniques included water-boarding, walling (slamming detainees into a flexible wall), sleep deprivation, hooding and using dogs to inspire fear. (See pictures of life inside Guantanamo)

Although an executive summary of the report had been released last December; the full version - which appears to have survived the Pentagon's declassification review with only mild redaction - will likely have much greater impact, coming on the heels of the CIA "torture memos" released last week.

In a statement, SASC chairman Sen. Carl Levin said the report "represents a condemnation of both the Bush Administration's interrogation policies and of senior Administration officials who attempted to shift the blame for abuse - such as that seen at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan - to low ranking soldiers."

While much of the controversy over interrogation and detention practices at Guantanamo has centered on the CIA, the SASC report puts the spotlight firmly on the Pentagon - specifically on former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his DoD lawyer Jim Haynes, his policy chief Douglas Feith, Guantanamo commanders Maj. Gen. Michael Dunleavy and Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, and a raft of other DoD officials. It offers a detailed account purporting to show how these officials - some of them knowingly, others unwittingly - allowed SERE techniques to be used for interrogation. It suggests, too, that many SERE experts and military lawyers raised concerns about and objections to this reverse-engineering of techniques used in courses to train Americans to survive captures by communist regimes.

The process began in December 2001, when the DoD's office of general counsel asked the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), which oversees the SERE program, about detainee "exploitation." Within a few months, SERE trainers were training military interrogators bound for Gitmo. (The JPRA would also pass on its expertise to the CIA.)

Soon afterward, the first alarms began to sound. Jerald Ogrisseg, an Air Force SERE psychologist, warned the JPRA chief of staff Daniel Baumgartner that waterboarding detainees was illegal. In Oct 2002, Lt. Col Morgan Banks, an Army SERE psychologist, warned officials at Gitmo of the risks of using SERE techniques for interrogation, pointing out that even with the Army's careful monitoring, injuries and accidents did happen. "The risk with real detainees is increased exponentially," he wrote.

But by then, the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) had already issued two legal opinions, signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, declaring that the techniques did not amount to torture. JPRA training for Gitmo interrogators was stepped up. In December, with Rumsfeld's authorization, officials of the Joint Task Force at Gitmo devised a standard operating procedure for the use of many SERE techniques to interrogate detainees.

Rumsfeld would rescind his authorization in a manner of weeks, after the Navy General Counsel, Alberto Mora, raised concerns about many techniques, arguing that they violated U.S. and international laws and constituted, at worst, torture. Mora met Haynes and warned him that the "interrogation policies could threaten [Rumsfeld's] tenure and could even damage the Presidnecy."

But even after Rumsfeld in January 2003 rescinded the authority for the use of SERE techniques at Gitmo, they remained in use in Afghanistan, and later in Iraq. Since Rumsfeld never declared these techniques illegal, military lawyers down the line were able to cite his original authorization as Pentagon policy. JPRA instructors would eventually travel to Iraq to train military interrogators there.

In the summer of 2004, JPRA was even considering sending trainers to Afghanistan, prompting another SERE psychologist, Col. Kenneth Rollins, to warn his colleagues by e-mail: "[W]e need to really stress the difference between what instructors do at SERE school (done to INCREASE RESISTANCE capability in students) versus what is taught at interrogator school (done to gather information). What is done by SERE instructors is by definition ineffective interrogator conduct. Simply stated, SERE school does not train you on how to interrogate, and things you 'learn' there by osmosis about interrogation are probably wrong if copied by interrogators."

The final irony: The torture techniques around which the SERE training was devised were used by Chinese interrogators during the Korean War, not to gather actionable intelligence but to force false confessions from captured U.S. soldiers - confessions that could then be used in anti-American propaganda.

BlueAngel

04-21-2009, 11:34 PM

Excerpt:

"But attorneys decided that waterboarding caused "no pain or actual harm whatsoever" and so did not meet the "severe pain and suffering" standard to be considered torture."

I am so thrilled that ATTORNEYS have made this decision.

Thank goodness for lawyers.

They know all.

Hey.

Here's an idea.

How 'bout these attorneys undergo some waterboarding by the CIA and then get back to us regarding whether or not they stand by their decision.

The Justice department considers waterboarding to constitute a threat of imminent danger.

Obviously, one feels as though they are drowning.

There isn't any need for discussion on the subject of waterboarding.

Waterboarding meets the TORTURE criteria, because irregardless of the fact that these bone-headed attorneys find it doesn't cause any physical harm or suffering, they ARE NOT considering the psychological suffering and harm.

And, that is the POINT.

Waterboarding is torture.

Period!

Darth Cacodaemon

04-22-2009, 09:03 AM

Excerpt:

"But attorneys decided that waterboarding caused "no pain or actual harm whatsoever" and so did not meet the "severe pain and suffering" standard to be considered torture."

I am so thrilled that ATTORNEYS have made this decision.

Thank goodness for lawyers.

They know all.

Hey.

Here's an idea.

How 'bout these attorneys undergo some waterboarding by the CIA and then get back to us regarding whether or not they stand by their decision.

The Justice department considers waterboarding to constitute a threat of imminent danger.

Obviously, one feels as though they are drowning.

There isn't any need for discussion on the subject of waterboarding.

Waterboarding meets the TORTURE criteria, because irregardless of the fact that these bone-headed attorneys find it doesn't cause any physical harm or suffering, they ARE NOT considering the psychological suffering and harm.

And, that is the POINT.

Waterboarding is torture.

Period!

Forgot you're Thorazine this morning, BlueAngel?:D

BlueAngel

04-22-2009, 10:03 AM

Forgot you're Thorazine this morning, BlueAngel?:D

Why would what I posted indicate to you that I am taking Thorazine and forgot to ingest it this morning?

I DO NOT take THORAZINE, but I'm certain, the same as you appear to be that I was forced to take THORAZINE and other drugs while being tortured by the sadistic pigs.

Their hope was that they would have succeeded in BREAKING me and upon returning to my home, I would have to remain on this drug for the rest of my life.

Once again, they failed in their endeavor to control me.

ALL IS WELL with me!

Darth Cacodaemon

04-22-2009, 02:39 PM

Why would what I posted indicate to you that I am taking Thorazine and forgot to ingest it this morning?

I DO NOT take THORAZINE, but I'm certain, the same as you appear to be that I was forced to take THORAZINE and other drugs while being tortured by the sadistic pigs.

Their hope was that they would have succeeded in BREAKING me and upon returning to my home, I would have to remain on this drug for the rest of my life.

Once again, they failed in their endeavor to control me.

ALL IS WELL with me!

I sense your anger towards the "Pigs"..Perhaps they were sent to lead YOU to ME. Pain is a teacher and payback is a bitch.
Are you going to moan about this forever? If so, then you're wasting your breath. Or..Do you intend to do something about it?

There is nothing more pathetic then someone who bitches and moans, but won't do anything about it. So which will you be, a perpetual victim or will you do what is necessary, even if it is difficult, to get your pound of flesh?

BlueAngel

04-22-2009, 05:19 PM

I sense your anger towards the "Pigs"..Perhaps they were sent to lead YOU to ME. Pain is a teacher and payback is a bitch.
Are you going to moan about this forever? If so, then you're wasting your breath. Or..Do you intend to do something about it?

There is nothing more pathetic then someone who bitches and moans, but won't do anything about it. So which will you be, a perpetual victim or will you do what is necessary, even if it is difficult, to get your pound of flesh?

Excuse me, but I'm not bitching and moaning.

I'm contributing to the forum about this topic.

I WAS a victim.

Operative word:

"WAS"

I am a SURVIVOR.

The mind controllers who tortured and abused me were not sent to me and, even if they were, I'm CERTAIN beyond a reasonable doubt it wasn't so that I would be led to you.

An anonymous poster on an internet forum.

Please tell the forum to what you are referring when you ask if I am going to do what is necessary, even if it is difficult, to get my pound of flesh.

No need to be obscure.

Or, is there?

I mean, if you weren't obscure, you would have to be clear and concise as to what you are inferring and that isn't how people like you operate.

I know what you're suggesting, but you don't want anyone else reading this forum to know, now do you?

PEORIA, Ill. – A man who was locked up without charges for years pleaded guilty Thursday to training in al-Qaida camps and coming to the United States on a mission for the terrorist group the day before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Ali al-Marri, 43, admitted to one count of conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization. A second charge of providing material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization was dropped.

Al-Marri faces up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine at his July 30 sentencing, though he will be credited for 18 months spent in civilian custody. His attorneys say they'll argue that he should get credit for the time spent in military custody, too — more than five years.

"Without a doubt, this case is a grim reminder of the seriousness of the threat we, as a nation, still face," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement Thursday. "But it also reflects what we can achieve when we have faith in our criminal justice system and are unwavering in our commitment to the values upon which this nation was founded and the rule of law."

Al-Marri's attorneys said their client, a married father of five from Qatar, chose to plead guilty to avoid the risk, if found guilty, of spending 30 years in prison.

"We thought (the plea) was the right approach to take based on the evidence the government allowed us to review over the last several weeks," attorney Andy Savage said outside the federal courthouse in Peoria.

When the judge asked al-Marri how would plead, the diminutive Bradley University graduate, seated at a table with his lawyers, paused briefly before answering without emotion, "guilty."

Al-Marri admitted he trained in al-Qaida camps and stayed in al-Qaida safe houses in Pakistan between 1998 and 2001, where he learned how to handle weapons and how to communicate by phone and e-mail using a code.

He also admitted meeting and having regular contact with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and with Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, who allegedly helped the Sept. 11 hijackers with money and Western-style clothing.

Al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident, was arrested in late 2001 while studying at Bradley in Peoria after federal authorities alleged he was tied to organizers of the 2001 attacks.

The Bush administration declared al-Marri an "enemy combatant" in 2003 and held him without charges for more than five years at a Navy brig in South Carolina. His attorneys say he was tortured there.

The "enemy combatant" designation was dropped when he was indicted by a federal grand jury in Illinois. He was moved to a federal prison in Pekin, Ill., just outside Peoria, in March, and remains there.

Holder said President Barack Obama ordered him to review the al-Marri case shortly after Obama took office in January.

Al-Marri got a bachelor's degree in business management administration from Bradley in 1991, then went to work for a bank in Qatar. The government said he met with Osama bin Laden in the summer of 2001 and was sent to the U.S. to help al-Qaida operatives carry out post-Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Al-Marri obtained a student visa and returned to the U.S. the day before terrorists crashed two hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

(This version CORRECTS that al-Marri was declared an enemy combatant in 2003.)

BlueAngel

04-30-2009, 08:54 PM

Why do they refer to this man as a former "Al Qaeda" SLEEPER AGENT?

• Former al-Qaida sleeper agent pleads guilty in Illinois court

How would they know this man is a SLEEPER AGENT unless they put him to sleep?

Putting one to sleep infers "mind control" programming is present and we all know about the CIA's connection to mind control and their use of AGENTS to do their dirty work for them so their hands remain clean.

Case in point:

Lee Harvey Oswald.

So, this man admits to aiding and abetting Al Qaeda after five years of being tortured and, wallah, TORTURE works.

The CIA is trying to look good.

Sorry, but as someone who underwent torture in order to silence me, I can state with certainty that most times when the CIA tortures, they do so in an attempt silence people as to their involvement in their lives.

BlueAngel

04-30-2009, 09:37 PM

I guess it took five years of torture on a Navy brig by a bunch of GOONS to wake this Al Qaeda sleeper up so he would confess.

Is this man the only 911 suspected terrorist who was held somewhere other than at GITMO?

OBAMA supposedly closed the secret CIA prisons across the globe?

What happened to the prisoners that were being held there?

Who were they and why were they imprisoned there?

BlueAngel

04-30-2009, 09:40 PM

That's all it takes.

Obama directs the CIA to close their secret prisons and, wallah, they shut 'em all down.

As if Obama has power over the CIA.

BlueAngel

05-12-2009, 07:53 PM

For those of you who want to say, "WE DON'T TORTURE," you would be mistaken.

If someone is held captive for several years and water boarded once, I wouldn't consider that torture.

However, if someone is held captive for several years and subjected repeatedly to what those in the past Administration refer to as "interrogation techniques," this would be considered torture.

It comes in many forms.

Food, water, sleep deprivation, electric shock.

I wasn't tortured from a very young age by the CIA because I was a terrorist.

I was tortured because I was a victim of MKULTRA/Project Monarch.

BlueAngel

05-14-2009, 07:30 PM

Alright.

I've heard enough about the CIA and their attempt to blame Congress and Pelosi, in particular, for their torturing of inmates at GITMO.

They use Congress as a scapegoat.

If they told CONGRESS that they were going to use water boarding as an "interrogation technique," and CONGRESS said, "NO," do you think the CIA would have walked away with their tail between their legs and abided by Congress' wishes?

Did they seek approval from Congress when they tortured me?

Did they seek approval from Congress before they incarcerated me in MKULTRA/Project Monarch and everyone else who was victimized in these mind control programs/experimentations?

The CIA does what the CIA wants to do.

There is no oversight of this "rogue" organization.

The CIA is protected by the NSA.

Thus, the reason for the creation of the NSA.

The CIA provided false intelligence to CONGRESS and the American people so the invasion of Iraq could be justified.

The CIA funded mind control programs and used American citizens as guinea pigs in experimentation's conducted by some of the same Nazi doctors and scientists who tortured JEWS in Germany during World War II.

These doctors/scientists were given safe-haven in America post World War II when they should have been tried as war criminals.

Don't attempt to present the CIA as a moral and ethic branch of our government.

I'm certain all of the CIA memorandums as referred to in this article can be relied upon as the truth and nothing but the truth.

Pelosi: CIA misled her on waterboarding

AP – Thursday, May 14, 2009.

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

David Espo, Ap Special Correspondent – Thu May 14, 5:19 pm ET

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bluntly accused the CIA on Thursday of misleading her and other lawmakers about its use of waterboarding during the Bush administration, escalating a controversy grown to include both political parties, the spy agency and the White House.

"It is not the policy of this agency to mislead the United States Congress," responded CIA spokesman George Little, although he refused to answer directly when asked whether Pelosi's accusation was accurate.

But the House's top Democrat, speaking at a news conference in the Capitol, was unequivocal about a CIA briefing she received in the fall of 2002.

"We were told that waterboarding was not being used," the speaker said. "That's the only mention, that they were not using it. And we now know that earlier they were." She suggested the CIA release the briefing material.

Pelosi also vehemently disputed Republican charges that she was complicit in the use of waterboarding, and she suggested the GOP was trying to shift the focus of public attention away from the Bush administration's use of techniques that she and President Barack Obama have described as torture.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said the request was turned down because the documents are the subject of pending litigation, which makes them not subject to declassification.

Pelosi has been the target of a campaign orchestrated in recent days by the House Republican leadership, which is eager to undercut her statements as well as stick Democrats with partial responsibility for the use of waterboarding — a kind of simulated drowning — in the Bush administration.

GOP officials secured the release of an unclassified chart by the CIA that describes a total of 40 briefings for lawmakers over a period of several years. Pelosi's name appears once, as having attended a session on Sept. 4, 2002, when she was the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Former Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., who at the time was the chairman of the committee and later became CIA director, also was present.

The notation says the briefing was on "enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah ... and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed."

Little, responding to Pelosi for the CIA, said the chart "is true to the language in the agency's records." But he did not say whether the information was accurate.

Instead, he pointed to a recent letter from CIA Director Leon Panetta to lawmakers saying it would be up to Congress to determine whether notes made by agency personnel at the time they briefed lawmakers were accurate.

The CIA has said it could allow congressional staff to review the notes made by briefers who spoke with lawmakers.

The chart specifically notes a discussion of waterboarding in 13 briefings between February 2003 and March 2009, most attended by Democrats as well as Republicans. Two Democrats, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, have challenged the accuracy of some of the CIA's chart.

Pelosi's decision to respond to her critics was something of a surprise, since most polls show Obama and his policies are popular, and Republicans have exhibited virtually nonstop political disarray in the six months since last fall's elections.

Pelosi renewed her call for a so-called truth commission to investigate the events in the Bush administration that led to the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. While President Barack Obama has banned waterboarding, calling it torture, he has been notably cool toward an independent inquiry that might distract attention from his domestic agenda.

"They mislead us all the time," she said. Asked whether the agency had lied, Pelosi said yes.

Pelosi contended that Democrats did what they could to stop the use of waterboarding. The senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, who received the 2003 briefing on the practice, sent the CIA a formal letter of protest, she said. That was a reference to Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif.

But Pelosi said her focus at the time was on winning control of Congress from the Republicans so her party could change course.

"No letter could change the policy. It was clear we had to change the leadership in Congress and in the White House. That was my job — the Congress part," Pelosi said.

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader, said during the day that Democrats "want to have it both ways" on waterboarding by claiming they did not oppose it even though they criticize it.

Boehner also asked Obama in a recent White House meeting to release the CIA memos that describe the information gained through the use of waterboarding.

Cheney says the documents show that the tactics prevented terrorist attacks and saved lives.

In an embarrassment for the administration, the director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, told employees in a recent memo that interrogations that included waterboarding had secured useful intelligence. He later issued a public statement that said it was not known whether the same information could have been obtained without harsh techniques — the same position Obama has taken.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s claim Thursday that CIA officials lied to her about waterboarding prompted a sharp rebuke from Republicans, some pushback from intelligence officials and a lukewarm response from at least one high-ranking member of her own party.

Hoping to quell a “what did she know and when did she know it” furor over so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, Pelosi told reporters Thursday that CIA officials “misled” her during a September 2002 briefing by telling her that waterboarding had not been used on terror detainees.

“The only mention of waterboarding in the briefing was that it was not being employed,” Pelosi said during a press briefing. The California Democrat said that the CIA briefers had given her “inaccurate and incomplete information.” Asked whether they’d “lied” to her, Pelosi nodded her head yes.

The Republican pushback came quickly.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking member on the House intelligence committee, called Pelosi’s account “Version 5.0 from Nancy on what happened in that September meeting.”

Writing in POLITICO’s Arena forum, former Bush White House press secretary Dana Perino said Pelosi had succeeded only in raising more questions.

“Is she suggesting that career government officials, those very CIA briefers, are the ones that ‘lied’ to her? What would have been their motivation for lying to her but others who got the same briefing not being lied to? Why does she suggest she was powerless?” Perino wrote.

A CIA spokesman said it is “not the policy of the CIA to mislead the United States Congress.”

And on the House floor Thursday evening, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) passed up a chance to back up Pelosi’s charge. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) asked Hoyer if he also believed that the CIA had intentionally misled the House.

Hoyer’s response: “I have no idea of that — don’t have a belief of that nature because I have no basis on which to base such a belief. And I certainly hope that’s not the case. I don’t draw that conclusion.”

Hoyer struck a more supportive tone when speaking to liberal talk show host Ed Schultz.

“We know things were done. We know that the law — we believe, certainly — was broken, and we ought to find out whether the law was broken. ... I think she’s accurate when she says what she said.”

Pelosi also got support from other House Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), an Intelligence Committee member who said that CIA officials broke the law if they misled Pelosi in 2002.

“If they make a false report, absolutely it’s illegal,” Schiff told reporters. “If they fail to make a report when they’re obligated to, that is also illegal — a violation of the National Security Act.”

Pelosi called on CIA Director Leon Panetta to release full details on the 2002 briefing.

A spokesman for Panetta said the director has agreed to make the notes of Pelosi’s briefing “available at CIA for staff review” — saying aides with security clearances could review them at the agency’s Langley, Va., headquarters immediately.

A Pelosi aide said that wasn’t good enough, because the contents of the notes are classified and can’t be shared with the public.

“We think the best way for this to come out is to release the materials,” said the aide.

Panetta recently released a chart detailing 40 congressional briefings on interrogations — including the September 2002 entry reporting that Pelosi had been given details about “particular” interrogation methods used on detainees.

“The language in the chart — ‘a description of the particular [enhanced interrogation techniques] that had been employed’ — is true to the language in the agency’s records,” a CIA spokesman said in an e-mail.

Hoekstra, who has emerged as Pelosi’s chief critic on the issue in the House, also wants to see more material released. As for Pelosi’s claim that she was the victim of lies, he said: “That’s a very, very serious charge. If you’re the speaker of the House and you say you were lied to on a national security issue, that’s a serious charge.”

Pelosi began her news conference Thursday by reading a statement emphasizing her longtime support of human rights causes.

Then she fielded a barrage of interrogation-related questions from reporters — and continued to answer questions several minutes after her handlers declared the session over.

When asked why she didn’t protest about being misled when she learned in 2003 that the CIA was, in fact, waterboarding detainees, Pelosi replied: “They mislead us all the time.”

She called the entire line of questioning a “diversion” from more important questions about the behavior of Bush administration officials at the time.

“They misrepresented every step of the way, and they don’t want that focus on them, so they try to turn the focus on us,” she added.

Pelosi didn’t dispute accounts, first published in a December 2007 Washington Post story, that she lodged no protest when informed of the administration’s legal rationale for procedures she now regards as torture.

She also reiterated her calls for the creation of a “truth commission” to investigate the matter — an initiative opposed by President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Pelosi was the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee at the time of the 2002 briefing. She was the minority leader when she says she first learned second hand in 2003 that the CIA was waterboarding detainees.

Pelosi reiterated Thursday that she supported a letter of protest sent in 2003 by Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who replaced her as the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee.

And she defended her decision not to confront Bush officials directly — even after she believed they misled her.

“No letter could change the policy. It was clear we had to change the leadership in Congress and in the White House. That was my job: the Congress part,” Pelosi said.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), speaking to reporters Thursday, repeated his call for an investigation into what members of Congress were told about the interrogations.

“I’ve dealt with our intelligence professionals for the last 3½ years on an almost daily basis, and it’s hard for me to imagine that anyone in our intelligence in our area would ever mislead a member of Congress,” he said.

“They come to the Hill to brief us because they are required to under the law. I don’t know what motivation they would have to mislead anyone. And I don’t believe — and don’t feel — that in the briefings that I’ve had that I’ve been mislead at any one point.”

But other members — including former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairmen Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Bob Graham (D-Fla.) — have backed Pelosi, saying the CIA chart was full of inaccuracies and mischaracterizations.

Graham, speaking to The Huffington Post on Thursday, said the CIA’s dates for his briefings didn’t gibe with a spiral notebook he used to keep track of important meetings.

“I went through my records and through a combination of my daily schedule — which I keep — and my notebooks, I confirmed and the CIA agreed that my notes where accurate; that three of those four dates, there had been no briefing,” he said.

Are WE to believe that the only "torture technique" used by the CIA on inmates at GITMO was water boarding?

From someone who was tortured by the CIA, I can assure you that when the CIA refers to "enchanced interrogation techniques," which can be classified as torture, water boarding is not the only "torture technique" they are deploying.

Hence, the reason the word TECHNIQUE is pluralized.

So, kindly tell us what other "torture techniques" were used.

BlueAngel

05-15-2009, 09:33 PM

The almighty Dick Cheney has said that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used on detainees at GITMO provided the previous administration with the Iraq/Al Qaeda link.

Why didn't they say this at the time, instead of using beefed up and false intelligence provided by the CIA to justify the invasion of Iraq?

Could be because it is not plausible to base a WAR on information provided to the CIA by foreigners after they have been imprisoned and tortured as the intelligence we need in order to invade another country.

We've heard about water boarding.

Kindly explain what other methods of torture fall under the category of "enhanced interrogation techniques."

BlueAngel

05-16-2009, 08:52 PM

Torture comes in many forms.

The main purpose is to strip the victim of their dignity and for the torturers to gain total control of their victim's mind.

You are at their mercy and mercy they have not.

The victim's life is in the hand's of their torturers.

One way to strip a victim of their dignity is to keep them in a cell and not provide bathroom facilities.

Defecating on one's self and laying in their own feces is the outcome.

One can choose to eat, understanding that the bathroom will be the floor of their cell or they can chose not to eat and starve themselves to death.

The torturers may tell the victim that their food has been poisoned in order to cause digestive symptoms after they eat and/or a fear of eating.

The victim will be called a disgusting pig for stinkin' up the joint and tortured for defecating in their cell.

So, again.

Eat and be forced to lay in your own feces and tortured for it or chose not to eat so you won't be tortured for defecating in your cell or merely because it is so humiliating you would prefer to starve yourself to death.

Occasionally, a shower will be allowed, but after water torture, water on one's body; especially their face can produce a fear of showering.

Water was provided in a dropper.

A drop or two is all.

Crying was not an option.

To do so meant that another torture session ensued.

I was to suffer in silence.

As soon as I closed my eyes and was able to sleep, I was rudely awakened to another torture session.

Psychologically, this tactic makes the victim afraid to sleep.

Sleep deprivation ensues.

Food, water and sleep deprivation!

Just a few torture techniques.

BlueAngel

05-16-2009, 09:42 PM

The "Stockholm Syndrome" can be affected in a victim when their CONTROLLER is present during their torture and he provides "false" comfort.

The victim would not be safe in his hands at present or in the future as he is a PIG just like the rest of them.

It is quite obvious as to whom I am referring to when I say that HE is a PIG just like the rest of them.

BlueAngel

05-18-2009, 11:29 PM

Excerpt:

"But he contended Pelosi has not done an adequate job of pointing out that her version of the September 2002 briefing was largely backed by public statements from former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla. (1987-2005).

Known for his detailed note-taking, Graham -- chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence in 2002 -- has said that he also does not recall the CIA informing him at that time that waterboarding was being used. Pelosi was ranking member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in September 2002."

Bruised by a controversy over what she knew about interrogation techniques in the previous administration, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is drawing on an arsenal of not-so-secret weapons to beat back Republican critics.

With a new CNN poll showing a spike in Pelosi's disapproval ratings since mid-March, her team is trying to manage what is arguably the most serious crisis of her speakership.

To deprive the GOP of new fuel, staff members have stopped responding to the Republicans' increasingly pointed attacks. Pelosi herself has stayed off the public stage since her remarks at a May 14 news conference inflamed the controversy, though she is still scheduled to hold her weekly news conference May 21.

Surrogates tapped to handle the weekend talk shows were armed with talking points charging that the GOP was trying to divert attention from the Bush administration's controversial interrogation methods.

Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said Monday that GOP criticism of Pelosi only helps her with Democrats. "It's a badge of honor," he said. "It shows they know she is an effective Speaker. And it's all a diversion from the main issue of what the Bush-Cheney administration did."

On Monday, the Republican National Committee released a Web video in response to what it called the Speaker's "irresponsible and confusing responses to top secret CIA briefings." The video spliced her statements with theme music and images from James Bond movies.

Mike Simpson of Idaho cautioned fellow Republicans to stay out of the controversy. "We should keep our mouths shut," he said. "She seems to be doing enough damage herself."

At issue are comments she made at the May 14 news conference: During a September 2002 classified briefing, she reiterated, she was told that "enhanced interrogation techniques," such as waterboarding, had been authorized, but not that they had been employed on suspected terrorists.

And, she went on, the CIA misled Congress by not informing lawmakers at that briefing that the harsh interrogation techniques had already been used. Agency records indicate she was informed that the techniques were used; she said she did not learn of their use until 2003.

Pelosi and her team are counting on a busy legislative week and the Memorial Day recess to quell the controversy. If they succeed, they will help President Obama refocus attention on his agenda. But if she fails to divert attention from the issue or if new disclosures raise more questions, the controversy will persist.

'Credibility Dented' Nevertheless, it's hard to find anyone who realistically thinks that Pelosi's 2½-year tenure as the first female Speaker -- and the first Democrat to hold the post since 1995 -- is in jeopardy.

"I think the controversy eventually dies down, with her credibility dented but her speakership unthreatened," said John J. Pitney, a former GOP House staffer who is now a political analyst at Claremont McKenna College in California.

Peter Fenn, a Washington-based Democratic consultant, said: "Any time you take a pounding like she has over the past several days, you have to rebound. Democrats are standing by her, so she won't lose her speakership over this, that's for sure."

Fenn said that dispatching allies to argue the real issue is interrogation practices in the Bush administration, and not what Pelosi recalled at one meeting, was "wise."

But he contended Pelosi has not done an adequate job of pointing out that her version of the September 2002 briefing was largely backed by public statements from former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla. (1987-2005).

Known for his detailed note-taking, Graham -- chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence in 2002 -- has said that he also does not recall the CIA informing him at that time that waterboarding was being used. Pelosi was ranking member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in September 2002.

On May 15, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta, who served in Congress with Pelosi, issued a terse statement, seen as a rebuke to the Speaker: "It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress."

Even though Pelosi is likely to surmount her difficulty, barring any new disclosures, that doesn't mean she has been at her best, said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of the University of Southern California.

"She hasn't handled it at all well," by seeming to change her story and by parsing words, Jeffe said. And if the negative fallout persists, it will be "bad news" for Obama, who has a close, admiring ally in Pelosi.

On Monday, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs declined for a second time to get drawn into the fracas but said the president has confidence in the Speaker.

Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R‑Ohio, said over the weekend that Pelosi should either produce evidence that the CIA misled her or apologize. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (1989-99) has called Pelosi's ability to remain Speaker into question.

Jeffe said such pointed criticism, especially from the controversial Gingrich, is music to Pelosi's ears.

"If I were Nancy Pelosi I'd send Newt Gingrich a big thank-you note for calling for her ouster," Jeffe said. "Democrats are not going to allow Newt Gingrich or any other Republican to throw their leader overboard."

BlueAngel

05-18-2009, 11:58 PM

Bob Graham was the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2002 when he and Nancy Pelosi were supposedly informed about "water boarding" and the "enhanced interrogation techniques" that the CIA would be using on inmates at GITMO.

Nancy Pelosi was a "ranking member" at the time on this committee and Bob Graham was the Chairman.

This means that Bob Graham held a higher position within this committee than Nancy Pelosi.

Therefore, Bob Graham should be called into this discussion.

I would like to know the names of the other members who comprised the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2002 and those who were informed as to what "interrogation techniques" the CIA planned to use on the inmates at GITMO and those who weren't.

Just because Graham is no longer a politician doesn't preclude him from being questioned about this matter.

BlueAngel

05-19-2009, 12:39 AM

What is the point of having a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence if the entire COMMITTEE is not involved in the INTELLIGENCE that is proposed?

Convenient for the CIA, I would suggest so they can have thier scapegoats and no witnesses.

Are we to believe that only Pelosi and Graham comprised this committee in 2002 or that, of all the members, only Pelosi and Graham were briefed by the CIA who sought their approval for the torture they inflicted on the inmates at GITMO so they could be the scapegoats when this became a public matter?

Again.

If only Pelosi and Graham were briefed and the committee is comprised of more members than these two, what is the point of having a committee?

To pick and chose thier scapegoats.

Graham is no longer a political figure since he lost his bid for presidential office.

How convenient.

Does that mean that he cannot be questioned as to this matter?

What are the names of the other members of this committee in 2002 and the names of those members who were briefed by the CIA as to their intents of the GITMO prisoners and those who weren't.

Are you telling me that Pelosi and Graham were the only members of the Intelligence Committee who were briefed by the CIA as to their intents and purposes of the inmates at GITMO?

Two people comprised this Committee?

If not, why were the other members not in the loop?

So the CIA could have a scapegoat?

It's not that difficult.

A list of the names of the members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 2002.

Those who were present for the CIA's briefing as to what they would be inflicting upon the inmates at GITMO and those who weren't.

A list of names of every member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 2002 is what I request.

Those who were briefed by the CIA as to the "torture techniques" to be used on GITMO inmates and those who weren't.

BlueAngel

05-19-2009, 01:16 AM

Excerpt:

"In the original column, Dowd wrote: "More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

In this file photo, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd speaks on 'Meet the Press' during a taping … Mon May 18, 12:13 pm ET

NEW YORK – New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has admitted to using a paragraph virtually word-for-word from a prominent liberal blogger without attribution.

Dowd acknowledged the error in an e-mail to The Huffington Post on Sunday, the Web site reported. The Times corrected her column online to give proper credit for the material to Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall.

The newspaper issued a formal correction Monday saying Dowd "failed to attribute a paragraph about the timeline for prisoner abuse" to Marshall's blog.

The error appeared in Dowd's Sunday column, in which she criticized the Bush administration's use of interrogation methods in the run-up to the Iraq war.

In the original column, Dowd wrote: "More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

Marshall last week wrote virtually the same sentence. But where Dowd's column used the phrase "the Bush crowd was," Marshall used "we were."

Dowd, who won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1999, told The Huffington Post that the mistake was unintentional. She claims she never read Marshall's post last week and had heard the line from a friend who did not mention reading it in Marshall's blog.

A spokeswoman for the Times late Sunday referred requests for comment from The Associated Press to remarks Dowd made to The Huffington Post.

In the updated version on the Times' site, Dowd's column had this note: "An earlier version of this column failed to attribute a paragraph about the timeline for prisoner abuse to Josh Marshall's blog at Talking Points Memo."

(This version CORRECTS that Dowd won the Pulitzer in 1999, not 1990.)

BlueAngel

05-19-2009, 01:56 AM

I have one thing to say to you, Nancy.

Thank you for embroiling our country in this torture scandal.

If not for you, the GITMO prisoners would have never been tortured.

It's all your fault.

If only you would have said NO to the CIA when they said they weren't going to water board the inmates, they would have listened and not one single prisoner at GITMO would have been tortured.

After all, the CIA has never incarcerated children in trauma-based mind control programs; funded their black operations by aiding the Mafia in child pornography and illegal drug distribution.

The CIA is a moral and ethic organization and you have corrupted them.

Thanks for shattering my illusion.

:eek:

Darth Cacodaemon

05-19-2009, 01:28 PM

I have one thing to say to you, Nancy.

Thank you for embroiling our country in this torture scandal.

If not for you, the GITMO prisoners would have never been tortured.

It's all your fault.

If only you would have said NO to the CIA when they said they weren't going to water board the inmates, they would have listened and not one single prisoner at GITMO would have been tortured.

After all, the CIA has never incarcerated children in trauma-based mind control programs; funded their black operations by aiding the Mafia in child pornography and illegal drug distribution.

The CIA is a moral and ethic organization and you have corrupted them.

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has avoided serious damage from the relentless Republican effort to discredit her, though there's some evidence that the GOP is making small inroads.

Republicans have been battering the California Democrat over her assertion that the CIA misled her in 2002 about whether terrorism suspects had been tortured.

"This is a case where Republicans can't go much lower than they find themselves," said Steven Smith , a congressional expert at Washington University in St. Louis , "so they have to go after the other side with whatever they can."

So far, though, Pelosi remains a very strong House speaker. She can claim a string of major legislative victories since January, including this week's passage of bills to give consumers more protection against credit card abuses and to crack down on financial fraud.

Her Democratic Party has a 78-seat majority in the House of Representatives , and few if any of them are willing to criticize the speaker.

"At the end of the day, the focus will be on the torture policy," not Pelosi's recollections, said Rep. Xavier Becerra , D- Calif.

A May 19 Gallup Poll brought sobering news to Pelosi, however.

"Pelosi (is) largely losing the public relations game, as she gets a significantly more negative review for her handling of the matter than do the other major players in the controversy, including the CIA ," Gallup analyst Jeffrey Jones said.

Those who are paying close attention to the flap_ only 22 percent of Americans, the survey found — disapprove of her handling of the matter by 63 to 30 percent. That's a small sample, however, and Jones said that "if Democrats stand behind her, she's pretty safe, unless something else comes out that makes her story seem less plausible."

It appears that the public simply isn't very interested. Carroll Doherty , an associate director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press , which also conducts national surveys, found that last week the story was "getting some attention for an inside Washington story, but it's a modest number."

Last week's Pew survey found that 67 percent had heard about the closing of General Motors and Chrysler dealerships, but only 38 percent were aware of the Pelosi story.

Republicans are hoping to build a drumbeat of criticism that builds to a crescendo in time for the 2010 elections.

"She's certainly a more opportune target than President ( Barack) Obama ," said Peter Brown , a political analyst for the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute .

Republicans, including House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio , haven't always been so quick to take umbrage at those who question the intelligence community's credibility. In 2007, Boehner said the intelligence community had misled him about Iran . This week, he said, "We are mixing apples and oranges here. It's different" because when the national intelligence estimate with regard to Iran was released, "it contradicted most everything I had been told in the six months leading up to it, and that's why I questioned what was coming out of this group that put the report together."

In addition, in an opinion piece last month in The Washington Post , former Rep. Porter Goss , R- Fla. , former House Intelligence Committee chairman and later CIA director, said that "I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed," suggesting that briefers didn't explicitly inform top members of Congress that detainees already had been waterboarded. However, Goss went on to say that key Democratic and Republican lawmakers well understood what the CIA was doing and raised no objections to it.

House Republicans tried and failed Thursday to create a special congressional panel to "review and verify the accuracy of the speaker's" statements. Rep. Steve King , R- Iowa , called Friday for Pelosi's security clearance to be revoked.

Pelosi brushed it all aside Friday at a news conference that she called to announce that she wasn't going to talk about it anymore.

"I have made the statement that I'm going to make on this. I don't have anything more to say about it," she said. "I stand by my comment. And what we are doing is staying on our course, and not being distracted from it in this distractive mode."

ON THE WEB

Pew News Interest Index

Gallup poll on Pelosi and other topics

Boehner on Pelosi

House roll call vote on committee to investigate the speaker ("yea" vote kills the plan)

MORE FROM MCCLATCHY

Congress battles over paying for wars, Guantanamo

Pelosi says CIA misled lawmakers on torture

FBI interrogator calls harsh techniques 'ineffective'

BlueAngel

05-23-2009, 08:43 PM

Torture is not effective in EXTRACTING the truth.

It is effective in forcing the victim to say whatever it is the torturer's want them to say so the torture will cease.

As far as I'm concerned, no one should be interrogated by the police when they are suspected of a crime unless an attorney is present.

Regarding the following video clip from The View.

Whoppi, just to set the record straight, since you stated that Nancy Pelosi lied, she did not.

There has been no proof offered that Pelosi lied as far as being briefed about the CIA's intentions to water-board inmates at GITMO other than what the CIA has provided.

This, coming from an entity that operates in secret and not within the law.

According to Bob Graham who was the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee and present during the meetings between Pelosi, himself and the CIA, he was recently interviewed on the radio and Mr. Graham stated that the dates the CIA provided as the dates they briefed himself and Pelosi about water boarding were inaccurate and he, too, has no recollection of the issue of water boarding being presented.

I will reiterate again.

The issue is not whether Pelosi lied.

The issue is about the criminal acts conducted by the CIA and the criminals in the White House who were conspirators.

Bob Graham was known for keeping meticulous records.

Is Bob Graham lieing, too?

Jesse Ventura was a guest on The View.

Mr. Ventura made the point that during the Bush/Cheney era, the American people were continuously lied too, and their resignation was not demanded.

Nancy Pelosi is being used a a scape goat for the criminal acts conducted by the CIA.

What else is new?

Ventura said that if he water-boarded Cheney for an hour, he'd have him confessing to the Sharon Tate murder.

She’s the 69-year-old speaker of the House of Representatives, second in the line of succession and the most powerful woman in U.S. history.

But when you see Nancy Pelosi, the Republican National Committee wants you to think “Pussy Galore.”

At least that’s the takeaway from a video released by the committee this week – a video that puts Pelosi side-by-side with the aforementioned villainess from the 1964 James Bond film “Goldfinger.”

The RNC video, which begins with the speaker’s head in the iconic spy-series gun sight, implies that Pelosi has used her feminine wiles to dodge the truth about whether or not she was briefed by the CIA on the use of waterboarding in 2002. While the P-word is never mentioned directly, in one section the speaker appears in a split screen alongside the Bond nemesis – and the video’s tagline is “Democrats Galore.”

The wisdom of equating the first woman speaker of the House with a character whose first name also happens to be among the most vulgar terms for a part of the female anatomy might be debated – if the RNC were willing to do so, which it was not. An RNC spokesperson refused repeated requests by POLITICO to explain the point of the video, or the intended connection between Pelosi and Galore.

But what isn’t open to debate is that the waterboarding conflict has been accompanied by a cascade of attacks on the speaker, not as a leader or a legislator, but as a woman.

Earlier this week, Pittsburgh radio host Jim Quinn referred to the speaker on his program as “this bitch”; last week, syndicated radio host Neal Boortz opined “how fun it is to watch that hag out there twisting in the wind.”

There has also been a steady stream of taunts about the speaker’s appearance, and whether it’s been surgically enhanced. On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Republican strategist Alex Castellanos said, “I think if Speaker Pelosi were still capable of human facial expression, we’d see she’d be embarrassed.”

Even erstwhile presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee took the time to pen a poem that begins:

“Here's a story about a lady named Nancy / A ruthless politician, but dressed very fancy.”

One might argue that face-lift and fashion gibes are just sauce for the goose these days – especially given the president’s crack about John Boehner’s perma-tan during the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.

But “hag”? The P-word? Really?

Not only is it bad form, say Democrats and women’s advocates, it’s bad politics.

“They can’t seem to distinguish between a backroom smirk among the boys and something you put out in public,” says former Hillary Clinton senior adviser Ann Lewis of the RNC video.

“It’s an attempt to demean your opponent, rather than debate them. If they’re serious that this is an issue of national security, then you’d think that one would want to debate it on the merits,” she says. “It’s almost as if they can’t help themselves.”

Of course, not all – or even most – of the recent attacks on Pelosi have involved her gender. Indeed, inside the Beltway, the criticism of the speaker has been almost entirely above the belt. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has called for Pelosi’s resignation without making cracks about her looks. Former Vice President Dick Cheney called her out Thursday without taking note of her gender. House Minority Leader John Boehner – who wants to move more slowly against Pelosi than some of his more aggressive House brethren – has kept up the pressure on her without marginalizing her as a woman.

Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, believes that those who attack female leaders on gender grounds do so out of weakness.

“In a way, it shows the desperation of the opposition,” she says. “If all else fails, you do something on their looks, or you remind them of sex.”

Phil Singer, who dealt with the issue as a spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, takes it one step further, arguing that such tactics are actually likely to be counterproductive in the end.

“As the degree of viciousness escalates and increases, I think women – and most people living in the modern era, including men – are more likely to rally to Pelosi’s cause,” he says.

He suggests that gender-based attacks can actually be the crucible within which a woman’s base of support is forged.

“Certainly nobody wants to be on the receiving end of this type of rhetoric, but in the long run I think it could end up making Nancy Pelosi a stronger national figure, and creating a real base for her,” he says.

While Pelosi has long had to endure her share of sexist sniping, Marie Wilson, president of The White House Project, which promotes women’s leadership, believes that the fact that the speaker’s clash with the CIA centers on truthfulness may have contributed to the recent rash.

“When I first saw this come up, I thought, ‘Oh no, it’s about honesty,’” she says.

Wilson – who gasped audibly when the RNC video was described to her – explains that her organization’s research has found that honesty and trustworthiness are the two areas in which Americans have higher expectations of women in politics than they do of men. And when women in power are viewed as or accused of being less than fully honest, she says, “that strikes at the heart of the cultural ideal in this country – wives, mothers, apple pie.”

However, she notes, “If a man gets in a situation about he-said, she-said, or what people knew, you don’t go to his maleness as a way to attack him.”

The reasons for them may be ineffable, but the attacks themselves seem to be all but inevitable for prominent or outspoken women – Republicans as well as Democrats. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was called a “bimbo” by “Politically Incorrect” host Bill Maher during the campaign; Meghan McCain has had to grapple with public attacks on her appearance from radio host Laura Ingraham.

(Palin’s office did not respond to a call from POLITICO on the Pelosi matter, and McCain declined to comment. None of the House or Senate Republicans contacted by POLITICO was both available and willing to comment on the RNC video.)

Says Singer: “It’s perverse in a way that to become a very strong figure, or to develop a very strong following, [women] have to go through something like this. I don’t think it’s fair, but certainly recent history suggests that it’s just the way it is.”

iHIMself™

05-24-2009, 12:23 AM

'In the media, waterboarding is called "simulated drowning," but that's a misnomer. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim IS drowning'.

Waterboarding makes one feel as if they are drowning and MAY cease to exist.

There is a difference.

Hence, the word TORTURE and hence, the word, simulation.

The word SIMULATION does not justify the act.

BlueAngel

05-24-2009, 01:35 PM

The CIA does not imprison people for years and subject them to only one form of torture (i.e., water boarding).

So, how 'bout it?

What other forms of torture fall under the category of "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," otherwise known as torture?

Why were the GITMO POW's incarcerated in one of the finest prisons in the world, according to Gates?

How did this benefit America?

It didn't.

It stained America.

It made those who hate us hate us even more.

Were the GITMO prisoners brought there for an island vacation?

Relaxing under the sun; being wined and dined and occasionally asked questions about what they knew regarding Al-Qaeda.

Many of them being interrogated without the use of torture and, willfully imparting information like a dripping faucet that took 7-1/2 years.

The CIA certainly knew exactly who they were looking for when they threw out their net, didn't they?

Could it be that some of these prisoners had information about whom America's real enemy is and they tortured it out of them?

Sounds plausible to me.

But, hey.

What would I know about the CIA and torture?

As of late, we're being told that the Bush/Cheney regime based their decision to go to war in Iraq on information obtained from some prisoners at GITMO after subjecting them to "torture" because they linked Saddam to Al-Qaeda.

Great.

This is now being touted as one of the "benefits" derived from torturing some of the inmates.

This is our protocol for establishing a justification to invade another country?

We round up foreigners, torture them to the point where they'll say whatever they want them to say and use that information to make a case for war.

BlueAngel

05-24-2009, 11:21 PM

Excerpt:

"Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union with John King" Sunday, Mr. Ridge, a Republican, urged Mr. Obama to release in full any memos that shed light on whether harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists prevented additional attacks on the U.S. after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Mr. Obama has rejected such tactics, which some critics have described as torture, as being ineffectual, while Mr. Cheney has said they helped make the country safer."

---------------------------------------------------------------------

That's all well and good, Mr Ridge, but, why on earth would you think that President Obama is in possession of memos from the CIA that shed light on whether harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists at GITMO prevented additional attacks on the U.S. after September 11, 2001?

Obviously, you think that these "so-called" memorandums were turned over to Obama shortly after he occupied the White House or shall we assume that they are being typed up as I'm speaking?

It can never be proven in a memorandum produced by the CIA or otherwise that "harsh" interrogations of suspected terrorists at GITMO prevented additional attacks on the U.S. after September 11, 2001.

Daily Kos: State of the Nation (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/23/734746/-Mancow-Waterboarding-V.-Real-Waterboarding)

Mancow Waterboarding V. Real Waterboarding

by Something the Dog Said

Mancow Waterboarding V. Real Waterboarding

Sat May 23, 2009 at 11:43:43 AM PDT

Yesterday a good thing happened, one of the Conservative talk radio torture apologists had himself waterboarded and after six seconds of it he was ready to call it what it is, torture, pure and simple. The Dog thinks this is a good first step, but we are not at the level where people realize how bad it is. What the Mancow had done to him was superficially like the waterboarding torture that we inflicted on Abu Zabaydah and Khalid Sheik Mohamed but it was in no way the full blown thing.

Something the Dog Said's diary :: ::

In an effort to show what it is like for those men, the Dog has written the following first person perspective of being waterboarded. Just a friendly warning, for those who may have endured torture, this could be triggering, so read with caution.

Your feet are shackled, and so are your wrists. When you were lead into the room you saw that it did not have the usual table, this room had a board, and a drain in the floor. You are blindfolded by the guards and roughly forced to lie on the wet wooden board. Even though you are shackled they tie you down to the board with three ropes, one across your chest, on across your waist and one across your legs. You are now completely unable to move, your head is below the level of your feet making the blood rush to your head.

You can hear them moving around and hear a hose running, filling a bucket of water. Your heart begins to race as your mouth is forced open and a wet rag is stuffed inside. There is enough clothe that it fills your mouth, and prevents your teeth from meeting, even at the back of your mouth. You feel a person sitting next you on the board, and they put their hands on your stomach, just above your diaphragm and push down, keeping you from taking a deep breath through your nose. You sense someone else standing above your head, and then the water starts to pour over your face. Not a little, but a torrent of water, it is running up your nose, and you can not breath! Your gag reflex kicks in, but the rag in your mouth does not let you gag.

Your body begins to convulse, convinced in the most primitive of reflexes to try to do anything to get more air! You thrash but the ropes and shackles have you completely immobilized. You feel the water hitting your face, as the person on the bench presses down on your diaphragm, forcing what little air you have out, not in. You are now sure that you are going to die, that you are going to drown, not an abstract, but for real, and right now. Your chest buns with the need for more air, your eyes tear under the blindfold as you struggle to get one more breath.

You are no longer a rational human, you are now just a survival machine, ready to beg anyone, do anything to make the pain stop and get just one more breath. The water stops falling on you. You suck air in through your nose and try to suck it in through you mouth. Both bring more water along with the small amount of air you can get. You hear the hose running again and know that this is not over, it is just starting. Your heart is going like a trip hammer, and you are in a state of terror, like nothing you have ever experienced or thought of. You know if and when they ask you something, you will do or say anything, anything to prevent them from doing it again. Then the hands push on your stomach, and the water starts falling again.

You struggle, trying to hold your breath, but the gag reflex kicks in again, and again you become more animal than man as you struggle for breath your body wracked with pain and convulsively struggling to get free to breath.

As you can see what Mancow did and what is being shown all over the TV is a very sanitized version of the real act of torture. He was not tied down to the board, he could make it stop at any time, he knew he would not die, he knew there were EMT’s standing by to assist him. The men we tortured with waterboarding had none of this. Worse they had been subjected to other torturous interrogation techniques prior to this heinous act.

There is no excuse for this, there can be no extenuating circumstances for these acts of torture. We received no intelligence that saved lives from the 186 times we tortured Khalid Sheik Mohamed or the 83 times we tortured Abu Zabaydah. Even if we had there can be no acceptance of this kind of completely inhuman acts. Former Vice President Cheney is a War Criminal. Everyone who participated and ordered theses acts must be investigated and tried for their State Sponsored Torture program.

We made a good step forward yesterday, but we are far from done. Do not let those you would talk to minimize this act of torture, if you must, show them the description above so they understand how horrible this really is. It is, perhaps, the only way we will get the accountability these crimes require.

The floor is yours.

BlueAngel

05-24-2009, 11:39 PM

I suggest that the EMT's who stood by the victims of these torture crimes at GITMO step forward.

BlueAngel

05-25-2009, 12:17 AM

Ah, Liz Cheney, kindly go away and take your father with you.

Don't talk to the American people about programs that the CIA designs as if they're legitimate.

Such as the torture of inmates at GITMO which Liz Cheney refers to as a program.

Why in the heck did Cooper interview Cheney's daughter?

No one cares what she has to say.

YouTube - CNN's Anderson Cooper vs. Dick Cheney's Daughter "Liz"

iHIMself™

05-25-2009, 08:42 AM

The link you provided cannot be found.

Waterboarding is not the same as drowning.

Drowning is to cease to exist.

Waterboarding makes one feel as if they are drowning and MAY cease to exist.

There is a difference.

Hence, the word TORTURE and hence, the word, simulation.

The word SIMULATION does not justify the act.

As if the page just dissappeares overnight???? crazy. Anyway, google it!

If you're shoving someones head under water and keeping them from breathing, is that drowning them or only simulating it?

SO, unless inmates at GITMO who were water boarded died due to this torture, it, therefore, cannot be "classified" as drowning, but rather as TORTURE which simulates drowning.

Frightening, to say the least, but this is the purpose of torture.

To frighten one into saying whatever it is they want them to say or they will make the victim suffer the effects of near death trauma over and over and over again.

BlueAngel

05-25-2009, 09:19 PM

Props to you, Ventura, but don't blame the DEMOCRATS for the torture that the CIA inflicted upon inmates at GITMO!

Otherwise, you sound as if you want to hold the CIA and CHENEY harmless and blame the torture of GITMO inmates on the DEMOCRATS just as the CIA desires to do.

In particular, Pelosi.

The CIA and Dick Cheney along with many others not including Pelosi or Graham are responsible for the torture of GITMO inmates.

Period!

According to Pelosi and Bob Graham, water boarding was not mentioned in the meetings and, even if both, Pelosi and Graham were advised as to WHAT "enhanced interrogation techniques" were going to be used, including water boarding, on GITMO inmates and, both, Pelosi and Graham advised the CIA against this practice, do you seriously believe that the CIA would have walked away with their tail between their legs and followed Graham and Pelosi's orders?

What other Intelligence Committee members were present at the briefings wherein the CIA was supposedly seeking the approval of members of this committee to TORTURE inmates at GITMO?

Like I said, these meeting are "briefings" and not for the purpose of seeking approval, but for the purpose of securing a scape goat.

The CIA does what the CIA wants to do regardless of approval or not.

I was a victim of MKULTRA/Project Monarch; a CIA mind control program; one of those programs that Liz Cheney refers to when she addresses the torture of inmates at GITMO and the CIA did not seek the approval from anyone within Congress to incarcerate me.

Ventura: I’ll waterboard Hannity into saying Obama best president ever

Mike Sheehan
Raw Story
Saturday, May 23, 2009

After ripping George W. Bush and expressing his desire to waterboard Dick Cheney, former governor Jesse Ventura continues his media storm, this time in a sitdown with Huffington Post.

The ex-pro wrestler minced no words, as usual.

Americans have changed “in that we have a paranoia that there’s a crazy Arab around every tree,” Ventura told Marcus Baram. “We’re walking on eggshells now, when in reality you have as much chance of running into a terrorist as winning the Powerball.”

Related: Texas gov. will use stimulus funds to pay to repair mansion

He ripped into conservative talkers, such as Bill O’Reilly: “I always want to go on [his show], I’ve got something, I’m going to blast him for something. I don’t want to reveal what it is so he can’t prepare. But he doesn’t have the courage to have me on.”

On Sean Hannity, whose show Ventura guested on this week: “He’s scared to death of me. It was over in a few minutes and that was it.”

The former Navy SEAL said he’d relish an opportunity to waterboard Hannity, a procedure he endured himself during military training: “I’ll bet him a thousand bucks that I can get him to say ‘Barack Obama is the greatest president’ — if I get him to say it, he’ll give the thousand to charity and if I can’t, I’ll give the money to charity.”

Ventura didn’t spare Democrats either, on torture: “They condoned it. Nobody stepped forward and said this is torture. Democrats are so spineless, so afraid to go against the tide.”

The always quotable Ventura has made memorable appearances on Fox News and The View in recent days, blasting the use of torture and questioning the official story of 9/11, which caused co-host Brian Kilmeade to walk off the set of Fox & Friends.

LONDON (Reuters) – Photographs of Iraqi prisoner abuse which U.S. President Barack Obama does not want released include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Thursday.

The images are among photographs included in a 2004 report into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison conducted by U.S. Major General Antonio Taguba.

Taguba included allegations of rape and sexual abuse in his report, and on Wednesday he confirmed to the Daily Telegraph that images supporting those allegations were also in the file.

"These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency," Taguba, who retired in January 2007, was quoted as saying in the paper.

He said he supported Obama's decision not to release them, even though Obama had previously pledged to disclose all images relating to abuses at Abu Ghraib and other U.S.-run prisons in Iraq.

"I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one," Taguba said. "The sequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan.

"The mere depiction of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it."

The newspaper said at least one picture showed an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Others are said to depict sexual assaults with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

The photographs relate to 400 alleged cases of abuse carried out at Abu Ghraib and six other prisons between 2001 and 2005.

(Reporting by Luke Baker; Editing by Jon Boyle)

BlueAngel

05-28-2009, 12:32 AM

U.S. Major General Antonio Taguba included allegations of rape and sexual abuse at Abu Gharib, and on Wednesday he confirmed to the Daily Telegraph (London) that images supporting those allegations were also in the file.

The images are among photographs included in a 2004 report into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison conducted by U.S. Major General Antonio Taguba.

"These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency," Taguba, who retired in January 2007, was quoted as saying in the paper.

Major General Antonio Taguba reported this to Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper.

(CBS) Last month, the U.S. Army announced 17 soldiers in Iraq, including a brigadier general, had been removed from duty after charges of mistreating Iraqi prisoners.

But the details of what happened have been kept secret, until now.

It turns out photographs surfaced showing American soldiers abusing and humiliating Iraqis being held at a prison near Baghdad. The Army investigated, and issued a scathing report.

Now, an Army general and her command staff may face the end of long military careers. And six soldiers are facing court martial in Iraq -- and possible prison time.

Correspondent Dan Rather talks to one of those soldiers. And, for the first time, 60 Minutes II will show some of the pictures that led to the Army investigation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

According to the U.S. Army, one Iraqi prisoner was told to stand on a box with his head covered, wires attached to his hands. He was told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted.

It was this picture, and dozens of others, that prompted an investigation by the U.S. Army. On Tuesday, 60 Minutes II asked Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of coalition operations in Iraq, what went wrong.

“Frankly, I think all of us are disappointed by the actions of the few,” says Kimmitt. “Every day, we love our soldiers, but frankly, some days we're not always proud of our soldiers."

For decades under Saddam Hussein, many prisoners who were taken to the Abu Ghraib prison never came out. It was the centerpiece of Saddam’s empire of fear, and those prisoners who did make it out told nightmarish tales of torture beyond imagining – and executions without reason.

60 Minutes II talked about the prison and shared pictures of what Americans did there with two men who have extensive interrogation experience: Former Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan and former CIA Bureau Chief Bob Baer.

"I visited Abu Ghraib a couple of days after it was liberated. It was the most awful sight I've ever seen. I said, ‘If there's ever a reason to get rid of Saddam Hussein, it's because of Abu Ghraib,'” says Baer. “There were bodies that were eaten by dogs, torture. You know, electrodes coming out of the walls. It was an awful place."

"We went into Iraq to stop things like this from happening, and indeed, here they are happening under our tutelage,” says Cowan.

It was American soldiers serving as military police at Abu Ghraib who took these pictures. The investigation started when one soldier got them from a friend, and gave them to his commanders. 60 Minutes II has a dozen of these pictures, and there are many more – pictures that show Americans, men and women in military uniforms, posing with naked Iraqi prisoners.

There are shots of the prisoners stacked in a pyramid, one with a slur written on his skin in English.

In some, the male prisoners are positioned to simulate sex with each other. And in most of the pictures, the Americans are laughing, posing, pointing, or giving the camera a thumbs-up.

60 Minutes II was only able to contact one of the soldiers facing charges. But the Army says they are all in Iraq, awaiting court martial.

"What can the Army say specifically to Iraqis and others who are going to see this and take it personally," Rather asked Kimmitt, in an interview conducted by satellite from Baghdad.

"The first thing I’d say is we’re appalled as well. These are our fellow soldiers. These are the people we work with every day, and they represent us. They wear the same uniform as us, and they let their fellow soldiers down,” says Kimmitt.

“Our soldiers could be taken prisoner as well. And we expect our soldiers to be treated well by the adversary, by the enemy. And if we can't hold ourselves up as an example of how to treat people with dignity and respect … We can't ask that other nations to that to our soldiers as well."

“So what would I tell the people of Iraq? This is wrong. This is reprehensible. But this is not representative of the 150,000 soldiers that are over here,” adds Kimmitt. “I'd say the same thing to the American people... Don't judge your army based on the actions of a few."

One of the soldiers facing court martial is Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Chip Frederick.

Frederick is charged with maltreatment for allegedly participating in and setting up a photo, and for posing in a photograph by sitting on top of a detainee. He is charged with an indecent act for observing one scene. He is also charged with assault for allegedly striking detainees – and ordering detainees to strike each other.

60 Minutes II talked with him by phone from Baghdad, where he is awaiting court martial.

Frederick told us he will plead not guilty, claiming the way the Army was running the prison led to the abuse of prisoners.

“We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things...like rules and regulations,” says Frederick. “And it just wasn't happening."

Six months before he faced a court martial, Frederick sent home a video diary of his trip across the country. Frederick, a reservist, said he was proud to serve in Iraq. He seemed particularly well-suited for the job at Abu Ghraib. He’s a corrections officer at a Virginia prison, whose warden described Frederick to us as “one of the best.”

Frederick says Americans came into the prison: “We had military intelligence, we had all kinds of other government agencies, FBI, CIA ... All those that I didn't even know or recognize."

Frederick's letters and email messages home also offer clues to problems at the prison. He wrote that he was helping the interrogators:

"Military intelligence has encouraged and told us 'Great job.' "

"They usually don't allow others to watch them interrogate. But since they like the way I run the prison, they have made an exception."

"We help getting them to talk with the way we handle them. ... We've had a very high rate with our style of getting them to break. They usually end up breaking within hours."

According to the Army’s own investigation, that’s what was happening. The Army found that interrogators asked reservists working in the prison to prepare the Iraqi detainees, physically and mentally, for questioning.

What, if any actions, are being taken against the interrogators?

"I hope the investigation is including not only the people who committed the crimes, but some of the people that might have encouraged these crimes as well,” says Kimmitt. “Because they certainly share some level of responsibility as well."

But so far, none of the interrogators at Abu Ghraib are facing criminal charges. In fact, a number of them are civilians, and military law doesn’t apply to them.

One of the civilian interrogators at Abu Ghraib was questioned by the Army, and he told investigators he had "broken several tables during interrogations, unintentionally," while trying to "fear up" prisoners. He denied hurting anyone.

In our phone conversation, 60 Minutes II asked Frederick whether he had seen any prisoners beaten.

“I saw things. We had to use force sometimes to get the inmates to cooperate, just like our rules of engagement said,” says Frederick. “We learned a little bit of Arabic, basic commands. And they didn't want to listen, so sometimes, you would just give them a little nudge or something like that just to get them to cooperate so we could get the mission accomplished."

Attorney Gary Myers and a judge advocate in Iraq are defending Frederick. They say he should never have been charged, because of the failure of his commanders to provide proper training and standards.

"The elixir of power, the elixir of believing that you're helping the CIA, for God's sake, when you're from a small town in Virginia, that's intoxicating,” says Myers. “And so, good guys sometimes do things believing that they are being of assistance and helping a just cause. ... And helping people they view as important."

Frederick says he didn't see a copy of the Geneva Convention rules for handling prisoners of war until after he was charged.

The Army investigation confirms that soldiers at Abu Ghraib were not trained at all in Geneva Convention rules. And most were reservists, part-time soldiers who didn't get the kind of specialized prisoner of war training given to regular Army members.

Frederick also says there were far too few soldiers there for the number of prisoners: “There was, when I left, there was over 900. And there was only five soldiers, plus two non-commissioned officers, in charge for those 900 -- over 900 inmates."

Rather asked Kimmitt about understaffing. "That doesn't condone individual acts of criminal behavior no matter how tired we are. No matter how stretched we are, that doesn't give us license and it doesn't give us the authority to break the law,” says Kimmitt.

“That may have been a contributing factor, but at the end of the day, this is probably more about leadership, supervision, setting standards, abiding by the Army values and understanding what's right, and having the guts to say what's right.”

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski ran Abu Ghraib for the Army. She was also in charge of three other Army prison facilities that housed thousands of Iraqi inmates.

The Army investigation determined that her lack of leadership and clear standards led to problems system wide. Karpinski talked with 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft last October at Abu Ghraib, before any of this came out.

"This is international standards,” said Karpinski. “It's the best care available in a prison facility."

But the Army investigation found serious problems behind the scenes. The Army has photographs that show a detainee with wires attached to his genitals. Another shows a dog attacking an Iraqi prisoner. Frederick said that dogs were “used for intimidation factors.”

Part of the Army's own investigation is a statement from an Iraqi detainee who charges a translator - hired to work at the prison - with raping a male juvenile prisoner: "They covered all the doors with sheets. I heard the screaming. ...and the female soldier was taking pictures."

There is also a picture of an Iraqi man who appears to be dead -- and badly beaten.

"It's reprehensible that anybody would be taking a picture of that situation,” says Kimmitt.

But what about the situation itself?

“I don't know the facts surrounding what caused the bruising and the bleeding,” says Kimmitt. “If that is also one of the charges being brought against the soldiers, that too is absolutely unacceptable and completely outside of what we expect of our soldiers and our guards at the prisons."

Is there any indication that similar actions may have happened at other prisons? “I'd like to sit here and say that these are the only prisoner abuse cases that we're aware of, but we know that there have been some other ones since we've been here in Iraq,” says Kimmitt.

When Saddam ran Abu Ghraib prison, Iraqis were too afraid to come ask for information on their family members.

When 60 Minutes II was there last month, hundreds had gathered outside the gates, worried about what is going on inside.

"We will be paid back for this. These people at some point will be let out,” says Cowan. “Their families are gonna know. Their friends are gonna know."

This is a hard story to have to tell when Americans are fighting and dying in Iraq. And for Cowan, it’s a personal issue. His son is an infantry soldier serving in Iraq for the last four months.

Rather asked Cowan what he would say to "that person who is sitting in their living room and saying, ‘I wish they wouldn't do this. It's undermining our troops and they shouldn't do it.’"

"If we don't tell this story, these kinds of things will continue. And we'll end up getting paid back 100 or 1,000 times over,” says Cowan. “Americans want to be proud of each and everything that our servicemen and women do in Iraq. We wanna be proud. We know they're working hard. None of us, now, later, before or during this conflict, should wanna let incidents like this just pass."

Kimmitt says the Army will not let what happened at Abu Ghraib just pass. What does he think is the most important thing for Americans to know about what has happened?

"I think two things. No. 1, this is a small minority of the military, and No. 2, they need to understand that is not the Army,” says Kimmitt. “The Army is a values-based organization. We live by our values. Some of our soldiers every day die by our values, and these acts that you see in these pictures may reflect the actions of individuals, but by God, it doesn't reflect my army."

Two weeks ago, 60 Minutes II received an appeal from the Defense Department, and eventually from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, to delay this broadcast -- given the danger and tension on the ground in Iraq.

60 Minutes II decided to honor that request, while pressing for the Defense Department to add its perspective to the incidents at Abu Ghraib prison. This week, with the photos beginning to circulate elsewhere, and with other journalists about to publish their versions of the story, the Defense Department agreed to cooperate in our report.

BlueAngel

06-01-2009, 07:20 PM

Yes.

I'm certain that if Obama would have allowed the release of the pictures of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by American military personnel that the Iraqi people would have demanded the withdrawal of our troops immediately, a year earlier then PLANNED and we would have obliged.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama reversed his decision to release detainee abuse photos from Iraq and Afghanistan after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki warned that Iraq would erupt into violence and Iraqis would demand that U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq a year earlier than planned, two U.S. military officers, a senior defense official and a State Department official told McClatchy .

In the days leading up to a May 28 deadline to release the photos in response to an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, U.S. officials, led by Christopher Hill , the U.S. ambassador to Iraq , told Maliki that the administration was preparing to release photos of suspected detainee abuse taken from 2003 to 2006.

When U.S. officials told Maliki, "he went pale in the face," said a U.S. military official, who along with others requested anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.

The official said releasing the photos would lead to more violence that could delay the scheduled U.S. withdrawal from cities by June 30 and that Iraqis wouldn't make a distinction between old and new photos. The public outrage and increase in violence could lead Iraqis to demand a referendum on the security agreement and refuse to permit U.S. forces to stay until the end of 2011.

Maliki said, " Baghdad will burn" if the photos are released, said a second U.S. military official.

A U.S. official who's knowledgeable about the photographs told McClatchy that at least two of them depict nudity; one is of a woman suggestively holding a broomstick; one shows a detainee with bruises but offered no explanation how he got them; and another is of hooded detainees with weapons pointed at their heads.

Some of the photos were of detainees being held in prisons, while others were taken at the time a detainee was captured.

"It was not so much the photos themselves, but that the perception that they would be Abu Ghraib -type photos," added the senior defense official, who said U.S. officials were worried "about the potential street consequences" of making the photos public.

Iraq is scheduled to hold a referendum by July 30 on the accord, which calls for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops by the end of 2011. If the accord were rejected, the U.S. would have to withdraw from Iraq within a year of the vote or by the summer of 2010. Some U.S. officials fear that would be before Iraq's security forces are ready to protect their country on their own.

The status of forces agreement calls for the U.S. to train Iraqi forces in specialized areas such as aviation and intelligence gathering and to step to the side as Iraqi forces take control of their communities.

Denis McDonough , the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said that Obama "has been clear that releasing the photos would have no benefit except to potentially increase the risk to our troops. He's also made clear that the existence of these photos was only known because the acts were investigated and those who undertook them were sanctioned."

With tensions rising again in major Iraqi cities such as Baghdad and Mosul , Maliki feared that "if you add this (the photos) to that mix, it could very easily provide an incentive to the extremists" to use more violence, a State Department official said.

That, in turn, might cause U.S. and Iraqi commanders to reconsider the troop withdrawal from urban areas, which would be a major setback to Maliki's government and to the Obama administration, which is determined to withdraw troops from Iraq as it escalates the U.S. presence in Afghanistan .

The administration, which as late as April had agreed to release as many as 2,100 photos, said in the two weeks before the deadline approached that the release could trigger a backlash against American troops.

After U.S. officials notified Maliki, the prime minister put "heavy pressure" on Hill and Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno , the top U.S. military commander in Iraq , to stop the release, the senior U.S. defense official said.

In early May, Odierno and Gen. David McKiernan , the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan , said they objected to the release of the photos. Both Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said they changed their minds largely because of objections from U.S. commanders in the field, but they never mentioned Maliki's reaction. Col. James Hutton , Odierno's spokesman, declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.

The senior U.S. defense official said that Hill and Odierno were the "primary voices" urging Obama to reverse his decision. They were joined by U.S. Gen. David Petraeus , the head of the U.S. Central Command; and McKiernan, who also were concerned that the photos, while not comparable to the pictures of U.S. guards abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib , could ignite anti-U.S. violence. The Senate is expected on Tuesday to confirm Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal as McKiernan's successor.

Several days after the meeting, Odierno returned to Washington , and he and Gates took their concerns to Obama. It took "considerable lobbying" before the president changed his mind, the senior defense official said.

On May 13 , Obama appeared on the South Lawn of the White House and said: "The publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals. In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."

The photos are part of a 2004 lawsuit that sought the release of photos that were part of investigations of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and a half dozen other prisons. The Pentagon objected to the release of the photos, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a lower court ruling to release them.

On Monday, the ACLU released a letter signed by a dozen organizations calling for the release of the photos.

"The Pentagon should release the photos while reaffirming to the world that the U.S. repudiates such barbaric behavior and is committed to dismantling the culture that allowed it to occur. In the end, full disclosure of the crimes committed by our government will make us all safer," the letter said.

The only logical/illogical answer would be because this is part of their sadistic nature.

Otherwise, I'm at a loss here.

BlueAngel

06-09-2009, 09:01 PM

Many of us are thoroughly upset, disgusted and disgraced that the government of the United States (CIA) tortured POW's at GITMO.

Rightly so, I might add.

I wonder how the public will respond when it is disclosed that scores of American citizens were tortured by the United State's government (CIA) while incarcerated against their own free will in trauma-based mind control programs; experimented on in hospitals, institutions and military bases; and tortured for other reasons, as well.

Not to mention the secret CIA prisons located on ISLANDS throughout the world.

KABUL (AFP) – Former detainees of the Bagram air base in Afghanistan have alleged a catalogue of abuse at the US military facility, the BBC reported Wednesday, after a two-month investigation.

Human Rights Watch meanwhile called on the United States to investigate the death, apparently at a US air base, and alleged torture of a member of an Afghan armed faction last year.

BBC said ex-inmates of Bagram listed mistreatment including beatings, sleep deprivation and being threatened with dogs at the base north of Kabul.

"They did things that you would not do against animals, let alone to humans," said one former detainee, identified as Dr. Khandan, while another described having a gun put to his head and being threatened with death.

The detainees were held in Bagram between 2002 and 2008. They were all accused of belonging to or helping Al-Qaeda or the Taliban but no charges were brought and some received apologies when released.

The Pentagon denies the allegations, made in interviews with 27 former detainees, the BBC said, adding that only two of those questioned reported having been treated well.

The US military in Kabul could not immediately comment.

The BBC quoted Mark Wright, a spokesman for US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, as saying conditions at Bagram "meet international standards for care and custody".

"There have been well-documented instances where that policy was not followed and service members have been held accountable for their actions in those cases," he added in a statement.

But a British legal rights lobby group, Reprieve, said the allegations confirm its concerns.

"Bagram is the new Guantanamo Bay," it said in a statement, urging the British government to take action over two Pakistanis it claims Britain helped render to Bagram from Iraq.

The BBC noted that US President Barack Obama vowed to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba immediately after taking office in January.

Unlike Guantanamo detainees, inmates in Bagram have no access to lawyers and they cannot challenge their detention, it said.

"The legal black hole in Bagram underlines the British government's moral black hole when it comes to rendering two Pakistani prisoners there in 2004," said Reprieve chief Clive Stafford Smith.

"As we have said all along, beating people and holding them incommunicado is not humane, safe and secure," he added.

Amnesty International said the BBC's findings were consistent with its own research that included interviews with former Bagram detainees.

"The allegations are familiar. So, too, is the absence of accountability and remedy for such abuses," said Rob Freer, US Researcher at Amnesty International, in a statement.

"The USA continues to fail to meet its international obligation to fully investigate all such allegations and bring to account all those responsible for authorising and carrying out human rights violations," it said.

Little is known about the roughly 565 detainees at Bagram, including the circumstances of their arrests or treatment and none has been allowed access to legal counsel or the courts, the global rights watchdog said.

The charges came as the New York-based Human Rights Watch urged the United States to investigate the death, apparently at a US air base, and alleged torture of a member of an Afghan armed faction.

Allegations about the death in December 2008 of the man, Agha Mohammad, were made public in a British documentary broadcast this month, it said in a statement released Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch?s own investigation of the incident in the western province of Herat and a post mortem examination report "show strong evidence of torture", it said.

Mohammad?s body was recovered wearing an orange jumpsuit of the kind worn by detainees held by the United States in Afghanistan, it said.

"The death and alleged torture of a detainee who had been on a US air base is a gravely serious matter," said the group's Asia director, Brad Adams.

WASHINGTON – A year after the Bush administration abandoned its harshest interrogation methods, CIA operatives used severe sleep deprivation tactics against a terror detainee in late 2007, keeping him awake for six straight days with permission from government lawyers.

Interrogators kept the unidentified detainee awake by chaining him to the walls and floor of a cell, according to government officials and memos issued with an internal CIA report. The Obama administration released the internal report this week.

Though the detainee's name and critical details are blacked out in the memos, there is only one detainee known to have been in CIA custody at that time: Mohammed Rahim al-Afghani, an alleged al-Qaida operator and translator for Osama bin Laden.

The documents show that even as the Bush administration was scaling back its use of severe interrogation techniques, the CIA was still pushing the boundaries of what the administration's own legal counsel considered acceptable treatment.

The documents describe two instances in 2007 in which the CIA was allowed to exceed the guidelines set by Bush administration lawyers allowing prisoners to be kept awake for up to four days.

The first episode occurred in August 2007, when interrogators were given permission from the Office of Legal Counsel to keep an unidentified detainee awake for five days, a U.S. government official confirmed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the report's details.

According to the documents, the sleep-deprived prisoner was kept awake by being forced to stand with his arms chained above heart level. He wore diapers, allowing interrogators to keep him chained continuously without bathroom breaks.

The second incident occurred in November 2007. After again asking permission from Justice lawyers to keep a detainee awake an extra day, interrogators pressed to extend the treatment for another 24 hours, depriving the prisoner of sleep for six straight days.

It is unclear from the documents whether the two incidents involved the same detainee. CIA spokesman George Little would not provide the identity of the prisoner referred to in the document.

Afghani, the alleged bin Laden translator, was captured in Pakistan in the summer of 2007 — around the time the Justice Department issued new guidance for the harsh techniques that could still be used on CIA prisoners. He stayed in CIA custody until early 2008, when he was transferred to the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Officials noted in the documents that the sleepless prisoner remained "alert and oriented" and seemed to be "adhering to a well-developed, robust and capable resistance strategy."

According to the documents, the prisoner was monitored by closed-circuit television. If he started to fall asleep, the chains jerking on his arms would wake him up. If a prisoner's leg swelled — a condition known as edema, which can cause blood clots and stroke — interrogators could chain him to a low, unbalanced stool or on the floor with arms outstretched.

Sleep deprivation beyond 48 hours is known to produce hallucinations. It can reduce resistance to pain, and it makes people suggestible.

The State Department regularly lists sleep deprivation as a form of torture in its annual report on human rights abuses. Recent reports have noted Iran, Syria and Indonesia as engaging in the practice.

Andrea Northwood, director of client services at the Center for Victims of Torture in Minneapolis, said her organization considers 96 hours of sleep deprivation to be torture.

"It's a primary method that is used around the world because it is effective in breaking people. It is effective because it induces severe harm," she said. "It causes people to feel absolutely crazy."

She said that in many cases there are lingering effects. "My experience in working with survivors, they are still struggling with questions whether they are normal, whether they should have acted as they did when they talked under this kind of pressure," she said.

Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the use of such a severe tactic in 2007 shows that the U.S. was not abiding by its own law.

"The documents are particularly disturbing because they were issued even after the Supreme Court held that these prisoners were entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions and after Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act to specifically prohibit cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment," Singh said.

Before scaling back its "enhanced interrogation program," the CIA used 10 harsh methods, including waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning. It later used six techniques, including sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation and slapping.

The Obama administration has since rescinded authority for any of the severe methods. Under the rules of the U.S. Army Field Manual, which now governs all interrogations, prisoners must be allowed to sleep at least four hours during every 24-hour period.

___

Associated Press writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

BlueAngel

08-27-2009, 07:54 PM

It would be interesting to know the names of the TORTURERS; their background, etc. because most NORMAL people are not capable of perpetrating such conduct on another human being.

BlueAngel

08-27-2009, 10:40 PM

What are the names of the "sadistic pigs" whom the CIA employs to torture other human beings for them and the names of the doctors who monitor the sadistic pigs as they torture other human beings?

samsamsonsoy

11-22-2009, 05:28 AM

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Truthbetold

12-29-2009, 06:33 AM

haha, Doesnt techniques sound a hell of a lot better?:cool:

Like a great skill you can obtain to help people.

BlueAngel

12-29-2009, 03:19 PM

More appropriate would be TORTURE TECHNIQUES.

EireEngineer

12-30-2009, 06:53 PM

It would be interesting to know the names of the TORTURERS; their background, etc. because most NORMAL people are not capable of perpetrating such conduct on another human being.
Ever hear of the Milgram experiment?

Truthbetold

01-01-2010, 02:39 PM

Ever hear of the Milgram experiment?
yes, almost all people are capable of torture when they are under the impression its for the good, or get a positif benefit from it,

EireEngineer

01-02-2010, 07:39 AM

Sadly, that does seem to be the case. History is rife with nasty things happening.

BlueAngel

01-02-2010, 08:46 AM

You would be wrong.

Not EVERYONE is capable of torturing another human being no matter what important information they may derive from same.

Truthbetold

01-02-2010, 08:51 AM

are you referring to my message? Because I stated ALMOST all people are willing to do everything when they are told that way.

EireEngineer

01-02-2010, 06:40 PM

Yes, even in the Milgram Experiment the percentage wasnt 100%.

BlueAngel

01-02-2010, 08:48 PM

are you referring to my message? Because I stated ALMOST all people are willing to do everything when they are told that way.

Your statement that almost ALL people are capable of torturing another would STILL be wrong because almost ALL people are not capable of torturing another.

It takes a certain breed and this is the breed the that CIA employs.

BlueAngel

01-02-2010, 08:51 PM

Yes, even in the Milgram Experiment the percentage wasnt 100%.

We know the percentage of people who are capable of torturing another would never be 100% in any group study or otherwise.

Your statement that almost ALL people are capable of torturing another would STILL be wrong because almost ALL people are not capable of torturing another.

It takes a certain breed and this is the breed the that CIA employs.

I think you misunderstand me, Only under pressure from a authority most people are willing to torture, because they think it is right.

["P]eople have learned that when experts tell them something is all right, it probably is, even if it does not seem so. (In fact, it is worth noting that in this case the experimenter was indeed correct: it was all right to continue giving the 'shocks' - even though most of the subjects did not suspect the reason.)"[14] (excerpt from Wikipedia) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#cite_note-13)

If you ask it out of the blue only the sickos that the CIA employs would do it.

BlueAngel

01-03-2010, 05:59 PM

[quote=Truthbetold;64201]I think you misunderstand me, Only under pressure from a authority most people are willing to torture, because they think it is right.

Most people aren't placed under pressure from authority to torture and, even if they were, I highly doubt they would be convinced that it was right. If they thought it was right, they wouldn't have to be placed under pressure by authority to torture. What type of pressure do you think it would take by authority, as you refer to it, to make you torture someone because they convinced you it was right? In my case, I would probably have to be threatened with death, but I still wouldn't think it was right. When do you think this scenario presents itself to most people? You know, when most people are placed under pressure by authority to torture as you have inferred and they do it because they've been convinced that it is right. If you're referring to the Milgram experiment, I would consider that useless information.

The CIA is the entity who employs people to torture other people for them and they employ people who are "sadistic" by nature. Period. These are the types of people they look for. These people don't have to be placed under pressure or convinced that it is right. They do it because it is in their nature.

"P]eople have learned that when experts tell them something is all right, it probably is, even if it does not seem so. (In fact, it is worth noting that in this case the experimenter was indeed correct: it was all right to continue giving the 'shocks' - even though most of the subjects did not suspect the reason.)"[14 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#cite_note-13)] (excerpt from Wikipedia)

MOST people KNOW that torturing another person is wrong and an expert in any field could not convince them that it is right and a torturer is certainly not an expert, but rather psychologically damaged. So, a torturer or any expert could tell me it was right, but I would know that it is wrong and I suspect this would be the same for MOST people.

That's the difference between me, you and a torturer.

I was tortured when a victim of MKULTRA/Project Monarch and those who tortured me had no regard for my life. They didn't have to be coerced by authority. Torturer's are "sadistic pigs" who delight in making and watching others suffer. It is in their nature. It is a part of their psychological
make-up.

If you ask it out of the blue only the sickos that the CIA employs would do it.

It doesn't have to be asked out of the blue. The CIA employs sicko's who torture people for them and, thus, the reason they are capable of such is because they are "sadistic pigs" by nature. They don't need to be coerced by authority or convinced it is right. The Navy GOONS come to mind.

Normal people cannot torture another.

Truthbetold

01-04-2010, 04:34 AM

Most people aren't placed under pressure from authority to torture and, even if they were, I highly doubt they would be convinced that it was right.

I dont mean right as in morally right, I mean right as in the better choice at the moment. ( sorry, English is not my native)

The CIA is the entity who employs people to torture other people for them and they employ people who are "sadistic" by nature. Period. These are the types of people they look for. These people don't have to be placed under pressure or convinced that it is right. They do it because it is in their nature.
I dont know if this people are sadistic by nature, more like blinded by ambition and 'love for the country'. I seen it happen to friends of me who enlisted in the army. They were full of joy, and after the training they were emotionless. The whole program is much like MKultra (be it in a far less cruel state), it still a kind of brainwashing.

I was tortured when a victim of MKULTRA/Project Monarch and those who tortured me had no regard for my life. They didn't have to be coerced by authority. Torturer's are "sadistic pigs" who delight in making and watching others suffer. It is in their nature. It is a part of their psychological
make-up.

Have you read Svali's article about MKultra and Project Monarch, She was just as ruthless as those CIA-torturers. And only now sees what was wrong with it.

BlueAngel

01-04-2010, 09:54 PM

truthbetold said:

I dont know if this people are sadistic by nature, more like blinded by ambition and 'love for the country'. I seen it happen to friends of me who enlisted in the army. They were full of joy, and after the training they were emotionless. The whole program is much like MKultra (be it in a far less cruel state), it still a kind of brainwashing.
Have you read Svali's article about MKultra and Project Monarch, She was just as ruthless as those CIA-torturers. And only now sees what was wrong with it.

----------------------------------------------------------------

People who torture are not blinded by ambition and love for the country.

They are sadistic.

This is their psychological make-up.

They have not been brainwashed.

People who torture people and then kill them are not brainwashed.

People who torture animals, such as the quarterback, Vic, are not brainwashed.

They are sadistic.

What program is like MKULTRA?

I don't think Svali was a victim of MKULTRA/Project Monarch and I'm not convinced of her story.